


Worthy Is In The Heart Of The Wielder

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 08:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2101971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The knowledge of when to lay power aside is as important as the knowledge of when to take it up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worthy Is In The Heart Of The Wielder

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this is going to get me SO BITCHED OUT. Becos women are never worthy (or, at least, Maria isn't or something, whatever).
> 
> Spotted on Tumblr in the Maria Hill tag: _…the footage shown at Comic-Con opened with the entire team plus agent Maria Hill chilling on the rooftop of Avengers Tower, taking turns to try and lift Thor’s Mjolnir. Chris Evans revealed during the Hall H panel that “since SHIELD fell apart, it’s more about this group of people depending on each other, without a clear leader”._
> 
> True or not, I squee'd behind my screen.
> 
> And then **standard-procedure** reblogged " _Now I want to write fic about Hill being able to pick up Mjolnir, but I can’t brain._ "
> 
> Well, after a week from hell, I _could_ finally brain. And this is the result.

It was a joke at first.

Stark suggested it of course. Punched Thor in the shoulder and commented on the muscles required to lift the hammer.

"More than mere muscle is required," Thor said with easy good-humor. "Mjolnir is a weapon that requires the worth of its wielder."

"Like Excalibur," Steve said from over to the side where he was sketching madly. Maria had been tempted to go over and look more than once, but she knew better than that. Courtesy to the courteous.

"Arthurian legend would be right up your alley, Rogers," Stark retorted. "About the same vintage, right?"

"So only the right person can wield it?" Clint asked, his fingers smoothing along the carving he'd been chipping out for the last hour, ignoring Stark's grumbles about the little pile of woodchips around him.

"Whosoever hold this hammer, if he be worthy, shall wield the power of Thor."  Thor waved a casual hand at the hammer. "You may attempt it if you so wish."

Natasha snorted when Thor looked at her. "Yeah, no."

Clint waved a hand, and the midafternoon light gleamed off the knife. "Pass."

Banner shook his head.

"What, nobody's going to even try?" Stark said, walking over. "Fine, then." He crouched down to study Mjolnir, as though it was a problem he could technically solve.

"Do or do not," Maria quipped for him. "There is no try."

Stark shot her a trenchant look, then reached out and took the hammer's leather-wrapped handle. "Feels ordinary enough..." He tugged at it. No movement. A slightly harder pull unbalanced him enough that he spun on one toe and had to grab hard hold of the hammer to keep from falling over.

After he'd righted himself, and the laughter had died down, he stood, setting his shoulders. "Okay, so that didn't surprise anyone, did it? Rogers?" He turned to look at Steve who indicated Maria.

"Ladies first."

Maria rolled her eyes - both at the gallantry and at the assumption that she should even try. But she put down her drink and went over to try because it was in the spirit of the afternoon. Plus, as her fingers touched leather worn butter-soft and warm by demigod hands, she figured it would make Steve look even better when--

It was lighter than it looked. Not feather-light - it definitely had heft and weight, but she wasn't straining to hold it. Maria could feel the power in it, beneath the inscriptions and runes carved into the head, carved into the ironwood handle. It hummed against her palm, warm to the touch, without the heat-sucking chill of stone or metal.

"Well, shit," said Stark as the others sat up, their eyes wide.

She looked at Thor, bewildered. "I don't understand-- How--?" Behind him, a smile played about Steve's mouth, as though he laughed at a joke known only to him. "I'm just--"

"A protector," Thor said into her silence. "A warrior. One who bears a burden of responsibility and shoulders it willingly. One who acts for the good of others, even at cost to herself."

In the bright sunshine, with unthinkable power in her hands, Maria thought of Phase Two and the Tesseract, of all the things she'd ever done and kept from doing, of all the things she sometimes wished she _could_ do, and of having the power to do it. _All_ of it.

Maria held Mjolnir out to Thor, relieved to see that her hands weren't shaking. "Take it back. Please," she added after a moment.

Thor laid his fingers on the handle, and the humming under her hand intensified. His eyes met hers. "The knowledge of when to lay power aside is as important as the knowledge of when to take it up."

It went from her with a sense of loss that was like a gasp - but also a clear breath of air after a heavy storm. There were some things mortal hands were not meant to wield. And Maria avoided meeting anyone's gaze as Natasha adroitly asked a question about the making of the Hammer, which Thor answered with perfect ease, while Stark tried to badger Steve to try picking up Mjolnir himself.

She relaxed after a while, as the afternoon drew on and nobody mentioned her lifting Mjolnir again. Not even Stark, for which Maria was fervently glad. But she saw the others giving her looks, curious, and even a little wary. She hid her own unease with the skill of long practise at a cool an indifferent demeanour.

Later that night, though, as she went into her suite in the tower, Maria found a folded sheet of paper tucked under her door.

She waited until she was inside the suite to open the sketch.

It was good. He'd captured the soul of the moment - her eyes wide as they took in the reality of what she held, her lips parted in the gasp of breath after attempt became actuality. One hand cradled the head, the other gripped the handle, and somehow he'd managed to encapsulate all her doubts and fears and terrors into her pose - the angle of her head, the stiffness of her shoulders, her stance, her stillness.

At the bottom was his signature and a small scribbled note.

_I never needed Mjolnir to tell me you were worthy._


End file.
